Giveaways are always great ways for sellers to increase their reach and drive more traffic to their products on the ecommerce platform.
By running an Amazon Giveaway, Amazon sellers can engage and reward customers while promoting their products. This type of promotion is quick and easy to set up, helping build brand awareness, trust, and loyalty with potential buyers.
This article explores how Amazon giveaways worked and when it retired. It will also discuss the different types of giveaways and their benefits. Finally, the article gives you an insight into the alternatives of Amazon giveaways to further attract customers, increase sales and enhance your brand value.
Overview of Amazon Giveaway
Do you want to drive initial sales and generate hundreds of paid customers for your products? Then, try to run Amazon giveaways – it’s the perfect way to get the ball rolling.
subscribe to their social media channel, including a Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, and so on
subscribe to their newsletter on the website
join their membership community
To encourage the entrants to increase their chance to win, you can also set up rules like winning bonus entries if forwarding the giveaway page to friends. Therefore, new customers might be driven to your online stores and interested in your products.
How Does Amazon Giveaway Program Work
When the Amazon Giveaway program was available, this was how it worked:
Sign in to the seller central account and launch a giveaway event in Amazon seller central
Decide how many prizes you want to give away and the entry methods
Purchase your products at full prices. These purchases will not be discounted, but your purchase history will be credited as regular transactions
When setting up the rules, it is recommended to request the customers to watch your product videos before their entry actions
Customers visit the Amazon Giveaways page and see your campaign
The winner will be selected according to certain rules
The products will be given away to customers for free as a giveaway prize
Provide non-winners with exclusive discount codes and transform them into new customers
When you run Amazon giveaways, you will be required to initially purchase your items at full cost – but don’t worry. These orders are treated just like regular ones, and you’ll eventually be credited back. Therefore, ultimately all that’s needed is the cost of goods plus Amazon fees per product given away.
Gamifying the experience by requiring customers to watch a video and using coupon codes can lead to better results, as non-winners are driven to purchase your item. However, the real value lies in providing this incentive for potential customers at the cost of several goods plus Amazon fees in the Amazon giveaways.
Is It Expensive To Run An Amazon Giveaway
Although giveaways may require discounts for non-winners and the cost of prizes themselves, these costs are often significantly lower than with other marketing strategies such as paid Facebook Ads campaigns.
However, the answer also depends on if you provide a grand prize in the contest. An expensive prize can attract a large audience and many entrants. But there will be fewer people who might want to purchase the item even with a discount.
How Effective Can Amazon Giveaway Be
The key point of Amazon Giveaway lies in that you can force the entrants to watch a video about your product.
In successful cases, when providing a fairly significant discount (more than 25%), after the entrants watch the video and even though they are not selected as winners, those interested in the products will make the purchase in the end with the discounts provided.
Therefore, if your product has a very thin profit margin, you might not be able to do any discounting on your products. And that means giveaways will not be right for you.
Is Amazon Giveaway Still Available
Amazon no longer runs a giveaway platform since 2019. The reason stayed unknown.
According to their FAQs, Amazon’s goal when reviewing such programs is “to ensure we are always improving the customer experience on our platform.”
The Alternatives Of Amazon Giveaways
As Amazon has altered its services, customers need to turn elsewhere to quench their desire for Amazon gift cards and product giveaways.
Giveaway websites are a great way for sellers to promote their products through giveaways. In addition, these sites offer users the chance to enter contests in exchange for prizes, ranging from Amazon gift cards to products.
Giveaways on these sites are usually sponsored by sellers, meaning that potential customers can be exposed to the promoted product even if they don’t win. Some websites also require users to answer questions in a survey format about personal preferences or general information that helps them determine website demographics.
Social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, are also great places to hold giveaways.
While influencers or celebrities may host giveaways to show that they are generous or express their gratitude to their followers, brand owners can use these giveaway campaigns as a good way to interact with their audience and enhance brand presence on social platforms.
If you’re hosting a giveaway, there are certain actions from your users that you should be wanting – such as getting followers on the profile and engagement with the post. This can take the form of liking, sharing, or commenting, even tagging friends to increase their chances under the giveaway post.
Following a designated period, the host will randomly select the winner, either manually or using an automated program.
Just like giveaway websites, forums offer an interactive and communal atmosphere.
Here are two most popular forum sites:
Reddit: Reddit is a powerful platform for content, ratings, and discussion. Members can vote up or down any submissions made through the site’s registered users. Unsurprisingly, Amazon has found success in listing their free stuff on popular subreddits such as r/giveaways – with more than 30,000 giveaways listed across the entire network. This number continues to grow daily; approximately 50-100 new listings are added daily.
Promo2day: Head over to Promo2day Forum’s “Giveaway Center,” and you will discover a big collection of giveaways you can enter. Specifically, search for the Amazon giveaways section, which offers exclusive discounts on gift cards, vouchers, and more! Also, if certain promotions are not yet, feel free to suggest them at Promo2Day, and their team may consider running them.
By setting up amazing prizes as an incentive, you can encourage the customers to know more about your brand or products to earn an entry to the contest. In addition, you can also provide an exclusive discount code to non-winners of the giveaway events. Therefore, the audience interested in your product may purchase at a discounted price after the giveaway.
Though the Amazon Giveaway program retires, other ways exist to run giveaways, such as using giveaway websites or hosting events on social media platforms. As long as your prizes are attractive enough and your products and brands are appealing, these promotional events will help drive much attention from new audience groups.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How Do Amazon Giveaways Work?
A: The program was launched in 2015 and retired in 2019. When the Amazon giveaway program is available, you can log in to seller central and launch a giveaway. After purchasing your products at full price, you will be able to send the products to the selected winners. You can also provide the non-winners with exclusive discount codes so they might purchase the giveaway.
8-figure Amazon seller and serial online entrepreneur since 2015. Research and practice various online business models, and apply his in-depth learnings to further expand and grow his businesses as well as help others to achieve greater successes. Ex-VP of a high tech VC in Vancouver and a Management Consultant with over a decade of experience in the industry. Master's Degree from HEC Paris.
